Midlands Ice Age

I think that you are correct... High pressure still really rules the roost up there with no signs of the polar vortex. Now that most of the internal to the basin ice has been covered, and with few colder outbreaks to lower latitudes. the ice has had little chance to form in the outer oceans as the cold so far has remined pretty locked in in Siberia and Scandy. It is strange that you should ask me a question as I had noticed something that I thought you may be able to help me on, and I was just about to put it on the MAD thread as it concerns the Arctic SST's. The SST actual map on CR shows all the Arctic ice as at a 0C actual. It is confusing because the ice seems to be at a fixed temperature (not true) and is probably not calculated at all as it is not a sea surface temperature as such.. That is OK, but I thought that sea ice freezing point was -1.8C So actually the ice is at -1.8C not 0C, Now all is OK (?????) so far... But even on the ice edge where freezing is occurring, I can see no SST temps below about -0.5C/-1.0C., almost as if they have based it upon the ice being at 0C, when it is really at -1.8C. It would be better if they chose different colours to thee standard colour for ice.. perhaps diff shades of blue for the differentiations. However on to anomalies - Here they do use different colours but I cannot see anything below -1C anomaly for the water surrounding the freezing ice.. It seems as though they have lost the -0.8c as a sea water change as it freezes. Now you may think that is because of the small distance/scale involved , but I have noticed this is true even when a 'flash freeze' occurs covering hundreds of square kilo-meters, so that is not the real reason. It is almost as if it is 'hard wired' into the algorythm, that surrounding the ice is a fixed sieve I do not know or understand but you may have contacts. and finally an interesting paper has just been released on the factors affecting Arctic sea ice which gives more light to our investigations into the Pacific Sea areas. I'll leave the link to the paper with you - https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/4133/2023/tc-17-4133-2023.pdf From the ASIF - Very interesting article. Repeating their concluding statement in their own words: "For example, we find that the absence of strong summer sea-ice loss over the last 15 years is likely internally driven and related to Pacific variability (LFP2, Fig. 6; Screen and Deser, 2019; Baxter et al., 2019; Ding et al., 2019). Assuming this internal mode switches to its opposite phase, we expect it to contribute to accelerated summer Arctic sea-ice loss over the next decade." - Indicating that it does indeed vary slightly with the ENSO, and the Pacific ocean currents.

Ok,,,, here we go with an update after a very mixed 4 days. The sea ice this year has behaved in an erratic manner in the last few weeks with several days of little or even negative change, then a large increase. It has happened again today with a +193Km2 gain. Snow meanwhile has reversed in Europe, with most of the snow in Germany now melting back. The USA meanwhile is still way below performance over the last few years, with a large virtually snowless area in the central prairie area's, and central Canada regions. Following the earlier in the week's static sea ice levels, things took a turn for the better in Chukchi (+18K), in Kara (+17K) and Barents (+10K), Chukchi is now all but full. The big gainers were Greenland (+49K) and Baffin (+54K). Hudson Bay continued to stagnate in ice terms, though there is still a lot more to freeze out. Also the Bering Sea has now started to ice out in the ocean for the first time. The Baltic gained a further (+8K). Also of interest for sea ice is the strange fact that around the first week in December we see all the sea ice extent numbers tending to converge at around 11.5 Km2 (on Maisie). This reflects the fact that all the internal Arctic ice areas have refrozen and the remainder of the refreeze season is dominated by the outer areas. MIA

Johncam.. No problems with the Barents sea ice this year it is second highest in the last 5 years, MIA

Talking of power generation and demand see my latest post in the power/energy blog for really strange happenings recently. Back later with a snow and ice update. MIA

and now for the December of 1962-3 and now for the real daddy of a winter 1962-3....... Started off in a very similar way, with a high pressure developing from the south. This time it was a bit further west and ridged up strongly towards the north east initially before the pool of cold air swept around the eastern flank, and induced a low pressure to our south. This pushed the anticyclone back towards Iceland. The high pressure then proceeded to seal off the Atlantic for a considerable spell. Could it happen again... probably not. The atmosphere was clearly in a state to enable burgeoning high pressure. MIA December 1962

Reports on the NOAA NCEP Reanalysis show that about the 15 - 16th of December 1961 high pressure moved up from the south, and it stuck around just to the west of Northern Ireland for about 5 days . During this time it kept trying to ridge to the NW towards Greenland, but it never made it beyond Iceland, and eventually towards the 20th it settled towards the East of the Northern Isles. Here it hung on for a couple of days before the blast of the colder air to the north pushed it a bit further west. There was no Greenland high until later on in the run. During this time the weather over the UK was cold with extensive fog and the temperature gradually fell so Xmas was cold, and frosty with night time lows dropped from -4C to -10C . It was Boxing day onwards that a low from the Atlantic went under, up the Channel, and the rest was history. I remember it well.... See the reanalysis of it all in the link below - 1961 December MIA

10days ahead??????????!!!!! MIA

Yep..... that is what the site you have used does to make one think it is currently lowest... (it fooled me and I suspect many others also). 2012 did have an extremely quick recovery.... MIA

John... Can you give a link for those remarks/graphs in your 2 posts above ? The ones recognised by most people as being accurate show the following - and for temps. Still exceptionally low for Scandy. Not seeing too much sign of a warm up in Scandy, and Barents is about average now after going through a warmer/ adverse windy spell. As for your chart of the 'extent' ice values, do not be misled the NSCSC charts ( I really think they are) are misleading as they seem to drop any lower years at this time of year!! Looks like you have been fooled.. Below for the representative actual charts - Area - - which are the worst at the moment, but still not lowest. Note that for extent and volume things look very different - So on what site did you find your info ? ... MIA

Still raining here.. I have recorded 20.1mms of rain this month so far. !0,1mms in the last 24hrs. So the rain has not been heavy, but as it started when the ground was frozen I suspect that a lot has not soaked in and has just run off.. My golf course (most unusually) is closed for the 4th day now. The water is just laying on the surface. I also am a bit concerned about tonight's forecast frost with the amount of water around on the roads. It could become very icy. MIA

As I suggested earlier today worth a third posting - ***** TRIPLE CENTURY INCREASE IN DECEMBER ******** Masie ai I suggested earlier has come up with an amazing triple century (+328K Km2) increase today. This comes at the end of a rollercoaster ride over the last 2 weeks - Gains were general with Hudson Bay standing out with a (+123K Km2) increase as the winds from the SE died away. Barents (+53K) and Greenland (+53K) both made up for the recent wind blown retreat of the ice. As mentioned earlier Greenland increased towards Iceland. Chukchi and Kara were consolidating (+10K) and (+11K) mode. Bering finally prospered as the wind moved into the north (+28K) , and Baltic (+8K) finally succumbed to the cold Scandinavia. All in all a good day for the Arctic sea ice. MIA

So after I spent a happy evening out dining at the NEC with grandkids. I have half an hour to produce the November review. First of all at the end of the month, we can see that a big reduction in sea ice occurred in the middle to backend period. I will use the ASIF charts and Jaxa data (with thanks) - The change of ice production, as was discussed on here, was an atmospheric weather related effect, rather than a temperature one. although the last 4 days has seen a temperature increase. However, the above increase and the weather change, has only slightly reduced the trend graphs and overall the trends remained positive, compared to history - Where we see the last 3 years of La Nina showing above the trend lines. La Nina is now dead, and a few months ago we entered El Nino territory. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the Arctic sea ice.. Any direct impact will take a few months to be transferred up there The latest position looks as though the situation is rapidly recovering, though it is only 4 days All for now, I suspect the the Masiie actuals may well warrant a further update later, when the numbers are out. MIA

Before I give a review for November, I thought it worthwhile updating with the first 3 days of December. Firstly as already shown the snow moved quickly into Europe, and has continued its westwards extension into France now, in addition snow has also moved back to the north west of the USA , and also is moving southwards into Central Asia, removing some of the discrepancy deficits there. (See Rutgers anomaly) We should see snow more widely in the UK on tomorrows charts following on from the overnight falls in central and northern England.. Following 7 days of stasis, the sea ice extent ( by Masie), has again burst into life over the last 3 days with gains of (+36K Km2), (+156K Km2), and today according to the graphics above, sea ice is expending rapidly in all sea areas. So later on today will see a further large increase. A few Masie screenshots for you - But of particular note is what has happened in the Greenland Ocean, where in addition to heading back into Svalbard (wind change again), the ice suddenly appears to be making for Iceland - The Iceland situation looks like a heavy snowfall effect (as Aleman's proposals), as the ice can also now be seen in the fjords of Iceland.. In addition my rule of thumb is that ice will rapidly increase in the SOO now that ice is forming out in the ocean - Back later with the November review - MIA

DWW Snap you just beat me to it with my post... It read Having briefly moved above zero for about an hour, its falling away again now down to -0.3C.(sorry -0.4C now). MIA

Have you got the sunshine with you yet? I had to change my batteries in the outside thermo this morning and I got a lot of hot air inside the screen, as the cover was stuck!! The sun came out as I was completing the job (with blue tack!) . Anyways I am now reading about 0.3C with the sun on it. MIA PS Just seen you later post.... I am actually above freezing now in the WSW breeze, and the low clouds are belting across the sky.

Just received my met weather warning for snow from 6pm this evening to 12:00 tomorrow. The warning extends to about 20-40 miles south of here. I trust this warning rather than the 12 hr out of time weather as per the BBC. By lunchtime (13:00 I think) they will catch up with this mornings forecasts. It is getting to be 'window watching/ curtain twitching' for us in the south and central midlands. MIA

Today update for snow and ice shows snow in Scotland and NE England - yesterday Today Back later with review of November ice and latest details. MIA

Temperatures are going to be crucial for tonight's snow(?!). Particularly to the south of us. Today is only slowly warming up. MY minimum was only -3.7C overnight as fog formed and prevented a further drop, Currently at -2.9C (10:00) with a suspect dp of -5.3C. So it looks OK at the moment, but the breeze is drifting in from the south. The real problem could be tonight that we have freezing rain somewhere in the Midlands. Good luck to everyone for the snow.. MIA

3 days since my last update report...... so time for another which must include a discussion on the Arctic Atmospheric profile. Firstly the snow has now moved into Europe. Will it get into the UK?, Possibly not on a UK wide scale. Sea ice has continued to meander along on an even but very slow trend. This has happened due to the atmospheric weather conditions over the current most important sea areas. These are Barents, Bering and the Baffin Oceans. Each has its own almost unique reasons (in the last 20 years) for the slowdown, Barents has been hit by SW winds for the last 8 days, after a very large early ice refreeze with the winds from the NE. Bering has remained blocked due to a depression, and this has stopped any cold escaping from the Chukchi into the Bering Ocean.. Baffin started slowly (after a warm N. American continent delayed the onset of a proper freeze). This then changed, but more recently WAA has been consistently blowing straight up from the South into the ocean and this has stopped any ice growth. Wind gusts of 100mph |SSE's have been recorded in the last 2 days off the tip of Greenland eg. Hudson has suffered from the same atmospheric situation, Which brings me onto the weather situation in the Arctic. Currently it is very strange. I show the SLP charts for today (from GFS remember) and 10 days time - These show current extensive easterlies in central and eastern Arctic, and also in the western Arctic perimeters (Atlantic.!!) around the current massive high over the central Arctic (Basically the CAB and Barents), then it recurves back into the Baffin Ocean to re-enforce the high. Move on 10 days and the whole Arctic is under slack conditions with generally high pressure still dominating. This is very obvious over the Aleutians Islands, and which will help to draw the colder air wrapped up in the Arctic out into the Bering Ocean. But perhaps the most obvious anomaly is that in the North Atlantic. I will say no more as I do not know what it means, except that it does not look a very stable situation. Temperatures are still around average with the cold average anomaly in Eastern and Northern Europe and Central Asia dominating. But look at the 10 day anomaly chart. It shows large areas of Russia with 25C cold anomalies, and a huge area of freezing conditions extending its influence towards Europe from the Pacific . This is despite the GFS forecast for the UK looking milder over the next week, These are not normal Arctic atmospheric conditions for this time of the year, with no sign of a tropospheric vortex.. I am at a loss for what this all means for the sea ice. So I'll finish there and await developments. MIA

Temperature dropped rapidly this evening and by 5:15 it had dropped to -1.8C. This induced fog to form and the temperature has risen to -0,8C currently (6:30). Roads are now covered in white ice and a deep rime frost has set in. Forecast seems to think the fog will come and go. MIA

I totally agree with Mat here Kasim. You can have the whole computing power of the world hooked up to this. But the output is only as good as the assumptions (and their correctness) built into the model. MIA

This relates to yesterday evening........ A layer of cloud passed over us from 6 til 9.00. I actually went up to 0.7C, though it has fallen steadily since then and I am now at -3.1C waiting for the GFS 00.... Never posted the above.... This morning 09:00 - Minimum temp overnight was -5.3C so coldest night after the slow start yesterday evening. No wind at all and clear skies were the chief factors. Still at -3.8C at 09:00 this morning . So its a nice start to winter season . Forecast to be lower again tonight. MIA

Climate Reanalyser for 2 days ahead now showing 2M temps of -60C under these white spots. This is getting really cold now.. it is well below being Baltic. MIA

Two days away from -40C uppers in Siberia now (see the white spot). Now that is unusual for the 1st December. MIA

Roger... Can I come down a bit after tonight's models runs. Change to 3.8C please,, Rainfall unchanged (105mms). MIA